What Would Jesus Say to an Agnostic?

What's An Agnostic?

Every person is either a theist, an atheist, or an agnostic depending on how you answer the question, "Does God Exist?" These terms come from Greek.

Theos = God
a = no
Gnosis = knowledge

Therefore…
Theist: believes God exists
Atheist: believes God doesn’t exist*
Agnostic: doesn’t know if God exists


Two Types of Agnostics
There are two types of agnostics. So, if you claim to be an agnostic, which kind are you? One kind of agnostic personally doesn't know if God exists or not, but the other kind also believes that no one can possibly know!

"Can't Know" agnostics believe not only that they don’t know if God exists, but that no one can possibly know. They believe that because God is beyond this world there is no way we could find out anything about Him even if He did exist. But is this right? How can they be sure that no one can know if God exists? First, it is a contradiction to say that we can't know anything about God. If someone says that God is completely unknowable, they are saying that there is at least one thing that we can know about God… that He is unknowable. But if we know this about God, then He really isn’t completely unknowable! Second, even if it is true that there is no way that we can gain knowledge of God from our end, there is no reason why God couldn't make Himself known to us. We may not be able to peer through the "great divide" but an all-powerful God would have no problem making Himself known to us if He wanted to. Third, I believe that there have been times in history where God has made Himself known. Just because they don't know doesn’t mean that other people can't know.

So, I don’t think it is a good idea to be a "can’t know" agnostic. But what about "don’t know" agnostics? If you’re a "don’t know" agnostic, here is the main thing I want to ask you… When are you going to find out!?


What Would Jesus Say?
Now, I don't really know exactly what Jesus would say to each agnostic. People are different and I am sure that Jesus would say different things to different people depending on what is in their heart and what they need to hear. But on the other hand, Jesus doesn't contradict Himself. He might say different things to different people, but He wouldn't say contradictory things to different people. Also, Jesus taught that He was God and that the Bible was God’s Word, so Jesus would agree with everything that the Bible teaches. So, although we might not know exactly what Jesus would say to each individual agnostic, we can know, from the Bible, for certain what He could say. Therefore, if you are an agnostic, the following are five things that Jesus might say to you. All of them are true and I hope you spend some time thinking about them.

1. If you doubt, find out!
There weren't too many agnostics around in Bible days. Almost everyone believed in God or gods. (The only question was, which one?) However, I think that what Jesus said to Thomas would apply to agnostics. After Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after being put to death, He appeared to his disciples. Thomas wasn't there at the time, but the other apostles told him about it. But Thomas doubted. He said, "Unless I see the nail marks in His hands and put my finger were the nails were, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." (See John 20:20-29)

Thomas has his doubts. Jesus told him to examine the evidence. Yes, Jesus said, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" but he didn’t stop Thomas from examining the evidence. In fact, He commanded Thomas to do touch His wound, and to stop doubting and believe.

No, Jesus isn't going to appear to you to touch, but that doesn’t mean that there is no evidence out there for you to examine. No one will be able to stand before God and claim that they didn’t believe because of lack of evidence. I think God will ask, "Oh? How hard did you try to find out?" There are great books. There are people you can talk to. If you are honestly seeking to find out, there is enough evidence out there for you. If you doubt; find out!

2. I have revealed Myself to mankind in and through the Scriptures.
God has not kept Himself hidden. He has revealed Himself to mankind, especially through Jesus Christ. The Bible is truth from God and it is a record of the times God has shown Himself. John 20:30-31 says, "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His Name." The Bible was written to bring people to belief. There is something very powerful about God’s Word. Seek Him there. The Gospel of John is a good place to start. It specifically said that it was written so that you would believe that Jesus Christ is who He claimed to be, God in flesh.

3. The most unwise thing you can do is to ignore God.
Now, you might get offended by this, but let me explain. Psalm 14:1 says, "The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.'" The Bible has a lot to say about wisdom. Wisdom is living skillfully for the best long-term results. The opposite of a wise person is a fool. According to the way that the Bible uses the word "fool" a fool might be someone incredibly smart, who makes unwise choices. And the most unwise thing that you can possibly do is to blow off the God who rules the universe, who made you, who must judge you, and who died to offer you forgiveness and true life. If God exists, it is an incredibly unwise thing to pretend He doesn't. Don't be a fool!

4. I didn’t just create you to know about Me, I created you to know Me.
Jesus told the religious leaders of His day, "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to Me to have life." (John 5:31-47)

It is one thing to know about someone. It is another thing to know them. For example, I know about George Bush. I do not know him. Jesus is reminding us that He doesn’t just want us to know about Him, as if He is just some character from ancient history. He wants us to have a relationship with Him. God isn’t an abstract theory to study. He is a person to have a relationship with.

5. I love you.
Simple, but true. God wants you to know that He loves you. John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."

If you are an agnostic, I think that Jesus might be saying to you, "I loved you enough to go to the cross and die for you. I already did. I died in your place to take your punishment for your sins… that is, unless you don’t want me as your God and sin-bearer. I have made my feelings clear about you. Your future depends on whether or not you reject or accept me."


God in the Dock
One last thing...

C.S. Lewis has a book titled God in the Dock. For a long time I thought it was called God in the Duck, and that didn't make sense to me, but then I realized I was reading the title wrong. But God in the Dock didn't make sense to me either until I read it.

One of the chapters in the book is actually called God in the Dock. As I read it, I figured out that in a British courtroom, the "dock" is where the person who is on trial sits. With that in mind, C.S. Lewis' words were very profound. He wrote,

"The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man, the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty and disease, he is ready to listen. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the Bench and God in the Dock."

If you are an agnostic, look into the reasons for believing that God exists and that Jesus Christ is God. I believe that if you honestly look into these things, you will find the answers. However, please take C.S. Lewis' words to heart and consider the attitude in which you are doing it. It is one thing to have faith that seeks understanding, or to discover the evidence for belief... but it is another thing to force the Judge of the Universe into the dock and to take His place as His judge. James 4:10 gives some good advice, "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up."


*Some atheists believe that the word "atheist" should refer to anyone who doesn't believe that God exists, not just people who believe that God doesn't exist. Did you catch the difference? There is a subtle difference between not believing that God exists, and believing that God doesn't exist. The first way means that you don't believe in God, but you don't claim to know for sure that He doesn't exist. Therefore, you don’t know either way. The second way means that you specifically believe that He does not exist. Now, I think that the word atheist should specifically refer to someone who believes that God does not exist, because the word agnostic fits better for people who don't know either way. But no matter what terms you use, there are four categories that each of us fall into: (1) people who believe that God exists, (2) people who believe that God doesn't exist, (3) people would don't know either way, and (4) people who believe that no one can know either way.

Touchdown Jesus Burns to the Ground

If your church has an extra $250,000 sitting around doing no good, you can use it to build yourself a sweet six-story statue of Jesus that makes Him look like a football referee. Solid Rock Church in Monroe, Ohio, had one of these, built to inspire drivers along Interstate 75 just north of Cincinnati. This colossus was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame and on Monday it was hit by lightning and burned to the ground. The steel frame is all that is left.

So, how should we interpret it when God in His wisdom ordains lightening to burn down your expensive giant Jesus statue? I'm sure that people have different theories.

Perhaps God did not want to be represented as something that I would be inescapably tempted to kick a field goal through.  Or perhaps God is trying to send a subtle message that there are better uses for a quarter of a million dollars. It's hard to say.

If I were an atheist I would find it very deliciously ironic and satisfying that "God" choose to burn down His own statue. Seriously, if there is a God, how could he choose to dishonor himself like that?

This isn't an explanation, but here is a thought: God the Father didn't treat this statue of His Son any worse than He treated His real Son.

God the Father "did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all" (Romans 8:32). Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah would be "stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted" (Isaiah 53:4). Although He was innocent, "Yet it was the Lord's will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer" (Isaiah 53:10). We, as sinners, are the ones who have rebelled and like sheep have gone astray, but "the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6).

This is not "divine child abuse." Although God the Father delivered up the Son, Jesus also did this willingly (John 10:17-18). Yet the Bible states "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith" (Romans 3:23-25 ESV). A propitiation is a sacrifice that satisfies and absorbs the righteous wrath of God against sin. God treated His Son as a sinner so that He could treat sinners as His sons.

The state of the Son was struck by lightning. The real Son was struck by the wrath of God, for our salvation.

Death as an Argument for God

Death is usually viewed as an argument against the existence of God. A good God wouldn't allow suffering and evil and death, or at least so the argument goes. However it struck me that there is something about death that actually makes it a good argument for God.

If evolution caused the seemingly infinite variety of life forms and intricate biological functions that we observe, why is it that in the billions upon billions of adaptations found in nature, evolution has not found the one adaptation that--by far--would be the most beneficial to a species, namely, a lack of mortality?

I do not mean immortality in the sense that an animal could fall into a volcano and live. What I mean to ask is why there is not one single organism, from cockroach to man to bacteria, that does not possess natural mortality? Certainly pre-programmed death cannot be more beneficial to a species than an unlimited lifespan? Nor is there any inherent reason why, with as much complexity as life has, could it not find a way for at least one single organism to sustain itself indefinitely?

If blind nature can supposedly find a way to create eyesight and consciousness, then why couldn't it find a way for one simply organism to just keep on living unless meets a violent death? All that would be necessary for this would be the adequate repair or replacement or parts. Certainly that would have been easier for blind nature to achieve rather than biological reproduction--especially when it involves two different gendered parents. If blind nature can find a way for life to build itself automatically from a single cell after conception, then why can it not find a way for one organism to sustain itself indefinitely?

But death is a fact. And it is a fact that is explained by a Biblical worldview. Human death, at least, came into the world when Adam rebelled against God and cut himself off from the source of life (Genesis 3; Romans 5). Death is part of the curse that is now over this world, and which one day will be lifted because of Jesus' death on the cross. The existence of death is better explained by a Biblical worldview than by blind naturalism, and thus strangely enough death is actually an argument for the existence of God

Adam and Eve and Incest

In a question and answer forum I was asked by a student how Adam and Eve's children could have had children without incest. I gave a two-part reply. They appreciated the last part the best.

I replied that they didn't. Since there were no other humans, Adam and Eve's children would have had no one else to marry but each other. But, this was before incest was specifically forbidden and it wouldn't have been sin. And as far as deformities caused by incest, I think it is safe to presume that there must have been something genetically pure or different about the early humans. In Genesis we read about early humans living extremely long lives.  Also, Adam and Eve's DNA would have contained the diversity of all the races.  So there was probably something special about their genetics that kept everyone from being born with arms growing out of their heads.

But if someone thinks to themselves that this is a far-fetched and stupid and that evolution makes more sense, then think about this: If Adam and Eve's kids had a problem, what kind of problem would there be for evolution? When the first monkey evolves into a human, there is just one human being. Who does that guy have to marry? A monkey. At least with Adam and Eve there were two human beings to get things started. With evolution, the first human being has to hook up with an animal. So you tell me which is more messed up?

Burn.

Yes, I know that no one thinks that monkeys evolved directly into human beings. I was obviously being rhetorical. Still, the inescapable fact is that if evolution is true, then the first human had no one to mate with except for a non-human.

Life Lessons from Jonathan Edwards

Mike Wittmer had a great post a few days ago about ministry lessons from Jonathan Edwards.  I didn't see it right away because I've been preoccupied writing a "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" VBS curriculum.

I completely agree that Prof. Marsden's biography of Edwards is absolutely fantastic. Edwards was both a pastor and a theologian and there is much that we can learn from his life in both of these areas. I just finished reading it a second time and enjoyed it just a much as the first time through.

One scene from Edwards' life could probably win an award for "most awkward moment." After his ugly dismissal from the church in Northampton, Edwards and his family had nowhere else to go and stayed in the town for about a year. On certain weeks the church was not able to find pulpit supply and had to suck it up and ask Edwards to fill in. I'm sure those Sundays were fun for everyone.

The fact that he was willing to do it says a lot about what kind of a man he was. Not too bad for a guy whose great-uncle was an ax-murderer.

One of the effects that Edwards' biography had on me was to remind me not to covet anyone's life. It is easy for an aspiring theologian to see grand achievements and accolades in Edwards' life and think that he would like to have them for himself. However, it is one thing to pick and choose the highlights of someone's life but another thing to want the whole package. After reading Prof. Marsden's book, I realized that although I admire Jonathan Edwards, I do not actually want his life.

Here is Dr. Wittmer's post:

Last week I made the time to carefully read through George Marsden’s magisterial biography, Jonathan Edwards: A Life. This is an important book for pastors, especially those in America. It seems important to know the finest pastor-theologian that our country has ever produced. At risk of oversimplifying an engrossing 500 page story, here in random order are a few things that we can learn from and about Edwards. Nate Archer recently took a doctoral class from Marsden on Edwards, so Nate, if you’re around, feel free to chime in.

1. Edwards died from a smallpox vaccination which he received when he became the president of Princeton. So there you have it—America’s greatest theologian, killed by Wellness Week.

2. Edwards was frugal. He wrote his indecipherably small script on the front and back of receipts and other scraps of paper. Edwards didn’t believe in wasting things, and he would probably approve of me and my old CRX.

3. Edwards always had scraps of paper with him so he could jot ideas down as they came to him and then pin them to his clothes. When he came home from a ride on his horse he would unpin his notes and organize them. He would have gone nuts with post-its.

4. Edwards was a perfectionist who probably wouldn’t have been too much fun to have around. He was better than you and he wasn’t shy about letting you know it. He was willing to die on principle, which is admirable but also got him fired.

5. America’s greatest theologian was fired from his pastorate in Northampton. This should encourage any pastor who feels like a failure in ministry.

6. Edwards intended to become an international figure. I didn’t appreciate this until I read Marsden, but Edwards’ rise was not an afterthought. He believed that he had the ability to become a significant theological force and he went for it.

7. It’s easy to go liberal but it’s hard to come back to a conservative position. The church in Northampton easily adopted the half-way covenant and even gave the Lord’s Supper to non-Christians (Solomon Stoddard called it a “converting ordinance”). But when Edwards sought to restrict the Lord’s Supper to genuine believers he got into trouble and ultimately lost his job.

8. Edwards emphasized both right doctrine and right practice. He taught that following Jesus lay as much in the affections as it did in sound theology and he sought ways to determine that a professing Christian truly was converted. See his Nature of Religious Affections for the definitive word on the subject.

9. Edwards and his generation lived under the constant threat of death. Whether it was from disease or from Indian attacks, death was never far away. Today we are more insulated from death and don’t appreciate how quickly we can die, even those of us who drive a CRX.

10. Whitefield was more gregarious and extemporaneous than Edwards. God uses a variety of temperaments and personalities, and we don’t have to become someone we’re not to have a worthwhile ministry.

11. Because it focused on the authenticity of the individual’s walk with God, the Great Awakening encouraged individualism and anti-authoritarianism. This in turn fostered the rise of those denominations, such as the Baptists and Methodists, who favored a more democratic, bottom-up approach.

12. In ways that sound similar to today’s world, Edwards sought to defend and develop orthodoxy to confront the dangers of rising secularism and liberalism. We are not the first American Christians to care about the boundaries of orthodoxy. For his part, Edwards seemed concerned about the slippery slope of Arminianism.

13. Edwards had one of the few good marriages among our Christian heroes of his day. Compared to Whitefield’s loveless marriage to an older woman and John Wesley’s decades-long separation from his wife, Edwards and his wife were the Brangelina of the 18th century. I’m pretty sure that last phrase has never been written before.

14. Because of the lack of available farmland and jobs, young people in Edwards’ day didn’t marry until their late twenties. This gave rise to sexual immorality, immaturity, and general debauchery, which provided fertile ground for the revivals to take hold (there were many unconverted church members).

15. Genuine conversion requires both drop and rescue. People must recognize their sin and guilt before they can be saved, but if they drop too far they may fall into despair and give up hope of salvation. We probably don’t drop sinners far enough today, while the first Great Awakening ended when Edwards’ uncle fell too far and committed suicide.